Replanted Identity

In a world where everyone is in contact with everyone else, having something truly collective often emerges as difficult. In this context of globalisation and migrations, the issue of identity is more and more prevalent. An identity in its original sense means: what is identical to us, keeps us together. Beyond differences, what makes us identical? To explore this question, Ideal Lab’ invited artists, designers and the inhabitants of two harbor cities and industrial micropolises: Saint-Nazaire in France and Florø in Norway. After having exchanged and found recurring issues, the Agents have imagined objects and art pieces generating identity. An identity based on what brings people together, local techniques and aesthetics. Three scenarios structure the exhibition: Share, Adapt and Belong.

​Ideal Lab

The Ideal Lab is a program that relocates the meaning of design to a social environment in muta-tion. In collaboration with research, arts, science, sociology, and industry the Ideal Lab’s goal is to define upcoming needs, provide human results and realise future scenarios through tangible pro-ducts and processes. By themed cycles of one year, selected Agents are invited to exchange visions, thoughts and co-produce meaningful results. From 2010 to 2014, four themes have been developed in collaboration with 45 creative Agents and eleven public workshops where held.

The results have received three international design awards and have been presented at 20 biennale, exhibitions, festivals and conferences around Europe.

​About the curators

Birgitta Ralston and Alexandre Bau met and founded their design studio in Paris in 2001. Two years later they discovered the West coast of Norway through an artist residency, where they ima-gined and built the design centre Transplant. Located on the shores of the Dalsfjord, it is today the studios creative base. The Swedish-French design duo is dedicated to give each design a sense of meaning and personality for International clients that use design strategically, making environments and objects understandable and desirable. Ralston & Bau founded the Ideal Lab investigative design program with the desire to initiate design that focus on social issues.

The artistic council together with Ralston & Bau choose the four Ideal Lab themes and selected the Agents that where invited to participate in Replanted Identity.